Childress Gives Statement; Busch Answers Questions At Pocono

Richard Childress, ween here with Joey Coulter at Kansas, on Friday gave his take on the beating he put on Kyle Busch. (RacinToday/HHP photo by Christa L Thomas)

NASCAR team owner Richard Childress met with the media at Pocono Speedway to talk about his run-in with driver Kyle Busch last week at Kansas Speedway.

He took no questions. He only issued a verbal statement.

Busch also met with the media and he did answer questions.

The following is a transcript from Childress:

“Here’s the deal, I’m going to make a statement on this deal. I appreciate everyone’s patience on this deal in the last week when I couldn’t talk to everyone.

“I guess the main thing is I take all the responsibility for my actions last week. I’m very passionate about this sport, I’m passionate about our race teams, our fans. And I let my emotions come in front of my passion. But that’s behind us.

“I guess the next thing is the fine that was levied against me, I’m going to pay it personal. I agree that NASCAR should have done something with me.

“I don’t agree that they didn’t handle the situation that happened on the cool-down lap.

“With that said, we had a lot of fans to send in donations last week toward our fine. I’m going to pay it personally. All that money that’s been sent in that’s still coming in, we’re going to take it and donate it to the Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma. At least in every bad situation, something good will come out of it.

“Hopefully, Kyle and myself will both end up learning something from this.

“Thank y’all very much, and talk to you later. See ya.”

The following is a partial transcript of the Busch Q and A:

Kyle Busch climbs into his car for practice at Pocono on Friday. (Photo courtesy of NASCAR)

Question: Do you understand why Richard Childress was mad last week?

Busch: “Me giving a congratulatory bump to Joey Coulter is what tipped him (Richard Childress) over the edge there. I don’t recall anytime – face-to-face conversation where Richard did tell me that, ‘If you touch another one of my cars I’m going to come find you.’ I don’t know if it was ever said in the media, but it was never relayed to me.

Q: ”Would it be good if drivers paid for damage they cause to other cars?

A: “If he came to me and was so upset about it, I would have offered him money to fix it. I’m an owner in this sport – I know there’s going to be torn up equipment here and there sometimes, whatever. I will say that if I didn’t roll out of the throttle, we both would have crashed off of turn four. The kid did what he was supposed to do on the last lap there. We raced each other for 18 laps and I was having fun with him trying to keep him back and I thought I had it done and then he got on my inside down the backstretch there and pulled a slide job through three and four and kind of squeezed me up there. I had two options – lift and let him beat me, which is fine, no problem. We’re racing for fifth in the Truck Series — wasn’t for a win. Or crash the both of us. It wasn’t necessary for any of that.”

Q: Did you know how much damage there was on Joey Coulter’s truck at Kansas?

A: “No, I didn’t feel like I hit him all that hard. I just thought I rubbed him a little bit. Typically when you rub a guy, you don’t see much damage from it. The trucks are so different too. I forgot about how the left-front fender on a truck – the nose is so much wider than the tire is so it kind of sticks out a little further so maybe there was more damage than I thought I would have caused. That’s entirely my fault – I’m the one that instigated it there or initiated it. As far as him having to fly out body hangers and all that stuff – if it’s something they didn’t feel that they could hammer and dolly out, sorry it came to that.

Q: ”Did the media interpret malicious intent toward Joey Coulter?

A: “There can be an easy way to interpret things sometimes and it seems like maybe I might be on the wrong end of interpretation a lot of those times. There was no malicious intent to be involved in hurting or damaging a RCR (Richard Childress Racing) vehicle.”Was anything said to you by Richard Childress prior to last week’s incident?“No. We were in that NASCAR hauler from Darlington after the race and he (Richard Childress) never said a word in there.”